When I was at JoAnn Fabrics the other day, I noticed they had all their Lizbeth thread on clearance for $1.97/ball. Since I've gotten bad balls from both JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby, I'm suspicious of these particular lots but I didn't have Caribbean and it's pretty so I bought it. It split on me once as I finished one motif, but otherwise, so far, no problems. But I'm less than 10 yards into the ball too. LOL! I hate being so skeptical but I've had NO problems with the ones I got from ZigZag Corner. Only the ones I've picked up more recently from local outlets.

(Update! Thank you Marty! The snowflake is from Mike and the pattern is HERE!)
Anyway, I tatted two motifs last night. One is from a vintage publication and I'll rewrite the pattern and offer that at some point later. The swirly snowflake was from a printout I had, and I'm pretty sure the designer is a guy and I think his name is Bob (maybe Biker Bob?) but it's not anywhere on the printout. It used to be that when I printed something from the computer, the website, at least, printed at the bottom. That doesn't happen much lately as so many websites are "print-friendly" and it's possible I copied and pasted the instructions onto a blank word document to avoid all the "extra" stuff. So...if someone, including the designer, will let me know who they are, I will be happy to add his information here!(Thanks again to Marty from Tat's All She Wrote.)

That said, I really like the Caribbean in the swirly snowflake pattern, but not the vintage snowflake pattern. See how the colors work out in the swirly but are disjointed in the vintage one? I had tons of thread on the shuttle after the swirly so that's why I tatted the vintage one. I'll do it again in white or a solid since it's for a project. The colorway repeat was good for one design but not another and this is the pitfall with colorful threads.

The other thing I wanted to demonstrate here was how the motif looks on different backgrounds. I actually have them on white too, but in my editing, I accidently saved one motif and lost the other so I didn't include it in the collage. I have lots of small cardstock that I use for background scans, especially for white pieces that don't show up. I put the motif on several shades of blue but it fades away into the darker blue so I didn't even scan that one. The gray is actually a gray-blue. The green and peach made the motif stand out better, but sometimes odd colors pull out shades you really don't want to see.

I actually like the swirly on the sky blue background. The vintage motif didn't look good on any of them but it's because of the imbalance of color distribution in the motif, not the background so much.

And that's my experiment of the day!

Wrapping up Christmas!

I decided there were simply too many photos to post so I've put the goodiees I got from my Secret Santa (Linda Mageske from NM) into a slide show. I believe if you click on the slideshow, it will take you to the home site where you can click on the pix individually if you would like to see them better.

Linda is a great crazy quilter and made an adorable little purse that featured my tatting goddess logo on one side and my fondness for tea on the other side. There is some tiny tatting held by the goddess so it's well worth going to look at the photos close up! She also sent a tatted snowman, tatted initials, and a chili pepper needlebook (HER OWN DESIGN) which is trimmed in tatting. Actually, that will replace a piece of felt I've been using in my tatting box to hold needles. There is also tea, peanuts, sweets, and some goodies that were in the purse - thread, a cabone ring with a tassle, metallic paper clips to tat on, some little post-its, and a package of beads in colors I've never seen before. I'm anxious to come up with a way to use them! Oh, and I forgot to mention the clever way she used Martha Ess's little square teapot pattern. She tatted two of them together and put a marble in the center to make it 3D and a pearl on top for the lid. I just love seeing the way people add their own touch to much loved patterns.

Thank you Linda for all the beautiful work you've done for me. It's been a pleasure being your SS recipient!!!!


Now this is a collage of my Christmas holiday(s). There are a few pics from my lace guild exchange and then some of my kids when we met yesterday for our own exchange before meeting up at my sister's house for the family get-together. I had my camera but got so involved watching home videos of Christmas's past that I didn't take a single photo there!

You might see that I also put up a little tree. It doesn't have a lot of tatted ornaments on it yet. I probably have more than enough motifs for it, but it was a last minute thing at the end of the hall. I loved the way it lit up.

One of my kitties found it a cozy place to hide out too.

And look who is perched in the tree topper? It's solid tatted "sock monkey" I got from Carol Amich last year. What a perfect place for him.

Not one to miss a thing, I found Cormac sitting in the chimes on top of the entertainment center, watching me and my family as we chatted and ate and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas.

I didn't get my curtains done the way I wanted and I have one more bookcase to clean out but my livng room and kitchen are the cleanest they have been in years. Wish I could say the same for the bedrooms that are holding everything. LOL! I'm off now until next year and I intend to be going through even more "stuff". For instance ~ I found I used very little wrapping paper and ribbon. I used real ribbon for the few gifts I wrapped, so why do I have a whole tub of wrapping paper? Also, I bought several LARGE gift bags on clearance last year......didn't use a single one. I think I need to go to an "as needed" status when it comes to gifts. Some generic bags that I can trim according to the occasion and a bit of ribbon are all that I need.

I have a lot of Christmas trims that I didn't use. I had already gone through everything and gotten rid of what I knew I wouldn't use. Now is the perfect time to go through it again and eliminate even more. I don't buy as much for my kids and very often it is along the line of gift cards anyway. Whatever I would make would be small too. OOoooohhhh...maybe there IS a light at the end of the tunnel!